Infinity
by xThe Painted Lady
Summary: She didn't want to know what the other girl was thinking, what her expression was. She was back in the space enclosing infinity and didn't want to leave. /KatiexAlicia


_**A/N:** Written, as Captain for the Wimbourne Wasps, for Round 3 of Fire The Canon's Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. _

_Much love to Joanna (DobbyLovesSocks) for beta-ing this for me! Any and all reviews are appreciated. _

_**Word count:** 3282_

* * *

She was breathing in harsh air, like the cold would rather she be somewhere far off and away. The smoke burned up her nostrils, left a bitter and burnt tang on her tongue. Alicia pulled the cigarette from her mouth for the last time that night. The taste it left felt like it could last a thousand years.

Katie stood on unsteady legs only a few feet away. Her voice cut through the air like a knife, despite its softness, tenderness, quiet words spoken from a mouth dry with guilt and a tongue dipped in fear.

"I'm sorry," she choked out.

Alicia narrowed her eyes at the ground, dropped the cigarette and stomped on it, stubbed it out. Her next words were uttered slowly, loudly, as though she wasn't quite sure Katie would be able to hear through such a tense wall that had been built between them. "Katie, love, remember when I tell you to never, ever ever _ever_, apologize for that."

oOo

It's cold that day, an apparent graveyard of what once was a lively Quidditch Pitch. The stands had gone brittle with cold, vacant of cheers and laughter. Instead, the crowd had retreated inside and, if outside, remained on the grounds seperating the castle and the lake, not too tempted to wander off in the late November chill. Alicia had woken up to a fog outside her window in Gryffindor tower, spidewebs of frost stretched along each corner of the panes. She'd touched a finger to it, an incomprehensible zing running up her arm. Then she grabbed the only person who wouldn't put up a fight with her and dragged them out into the bone chilling morning. Katie held her cloak up around her face. Alicia's broom was slung over her shoulder, face completely exposed to the wind, nose up in the air like a cat catching a strange scent and a smile on her face. Their shoes sunk into the snow in soft crunches along the path leading to the Quidditch Pitch.

oOo

When she stepped onto the field, Katie brought a hand up to the side of the stands, looking upward to where they stretched above the fog. The wood was like a knife to the touch, painted in ice and frost. The world around her was covered in a short but thick blanket of snow, stark white. Katie felt the rushing wind of someone kicking off from the ground on a broom and didn't even bother to turn around and watch Alicia drift high into the fog. Soon she began to wander, at first intent on retrieving her broom from the Gryffindor quarter room, but eventually that thought left her mind and she was walking on air.

She had no destination in mind, just a head empty of wonder and no place to go. The earth seemed vacant, even if the Quidditch Pitch was only a mere circle in a vast world, and if Katie chose to wander into the trees of the Forbidden Forest she would most likely find life hidden away waiting for the sun to shine again and for a warmer day to bring a better beginning. But when you were just one heart and two eyes that could see only to the centre of a dense fog, everything seemed smaller than it actually was.

The faint silhouette of Alicia shone in the distance, flying high above the grounds in strange formation. Katie's eyebrows furrowed. The wind brushed up a fresh layer of ice, as though she were surrounded by sand dunes instead of snow. It brushed her face like a gentle prod of a million needles. She quickly turned her back on the breeze and kept walking.

Beneath the scarf that billowed over her shoulder, sealing warmth around her neck, the smallest prickle of cold touched just below her collar bone. Katie touched a hand to it, making sure it wasn't the wind seeping through the scarf's fabric.

Minutes passed and her direction hadn't changed. Her robes dragged behind her, drenched in melted snow, her feet stung with cold, her face felt frozen and like any touch of her hand could shatter it. She pulled her cloak higher up around her face to try and warm herself. The fog seemed endless, a tent enclosing her to one space. Katie lifted her head and saw nothing but white. Part of her wondered why the snow still seemed to shimmer even without the sunlight, as though gold speckled the ground. The wind picked up and created another mist of ice, sharp like razors on Katie's face. She turned around, trying to ignore the whistling of the icy breeze. Soon, she made it to where she knew was the centre of the Quidditch Pitch, left untouched for days and covered in inches of snow.

Nothing was visible. Not the stands, not Alicia. Katie fell into a bed of frost. Quickly, she regained enough composure to hold herself up with her hands, looking toward the sky. For a moment, it was just her and the cold, the wind that whislted in a way as though it were taunting her, and a heart beating fast enough for her to feel the pulse in her hands. For once, she became aware of the rhythm of her own heartbeat, the only thing that felt warm in the midst of a frozen land. It could stop at any minute...

Katie's breathing picked up, her eyes burned at the freezing air hitting her eyes. She couldn't tell if a tear was running down her face, but it wasn't smoke that brought the slight warmth to the side of her face. Then her vision went from white, to grey, to black.

The warm brush of smoke hit her for only a second, then Katie fell onto her back, screaming, screamed so loud it could pierce steel, cut through the thickest vapor. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders, pulled her up and Katie stared into the face of Alicia.

Alicia's cheeks were red, her eyes were wide and she looked as though she'd just been slapped. They both stared at each other for a moment, then Alicia was whisking Katie off the ground and to her feet. Only one of them paid enough attention to their surroundings to know where they were going.

The world seemed endless in that moment, an internally small space enclosing infinity.

oOo

For a moment, she couldn't tell where she was. Then the warmth of a small building swarmed over her and Katie was struck with sudden relief. Red was strung along the walls in flowing banners lined with gold, her shoes clacked softly atop wooden floors. There were shelves and trunks, a sofa and a cupboard that had been all too familiar to her for six years. Alicia pulled her over to the sofa, and Katie fell sideways, relishing the warmth of the room that housed the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

Alicia paused, then bent to push Katie's hair back. "Are you okay?"

"M'yes..." Katie mumbled. She took a deep breath in and looked up. Alicia's face had relaxed some, but not much. Her eyes were still wide. Katie knew that inside, Alicia's heart was beating a mile a minute. She could see blood had gathered in her face, either from cold or panic. Perhaps both.

"What was it?" Katie asked.

Alicia's eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"The _smoke_...?" Katie lifted her head a bit more, shifting to a more comfortable position, all the while staring at Alicia.

Realisation dawned on Alicia's face. "Oh..." She reached into her pocket, pulled out a small box.

Katie watched her, narrowing her eyes. Alicia plucked a tiny cigarette from the box, lit it with her wand, stuck it in her mouth. "It was this," she said, pulling the cigarette away from her mouth to leave a wispy trail of smoke leading from her lips to the open air.

Katie's shoulders tensed. "Oh."

Alicia raised an eyebrow. "What? _Uncomfortable_ with it?"

Katie shook her head, narrowing her eyes. "No." Then she lied back down. She could feel Alicia's eyes on her, but tried her best to ignore it. The action resulted in her body tensing, and Alicia sighing. A string of smoke trailed through the air for a second before dissipating, and Katie fought to keep herself from gagging.

Alicia stuck the cigarette back in her mouth, looked down. Katie had turned onto her stomach, hugging the nearest pillow, feigning sleep and watching Alicia through half open eyelids. She would admit that sleep was attempting to induce her, like a seashell floating just above the tide, water gently pulling it under, or a piece of parchment just before firelight, waiting for the touch that sent it to burn into oblivian. Moments became minutes and seconds seemed to turn into hours. Katie's vision blurred. Alicia's figure was just as much a cloud of smoke as the cigarette vapor. Sleep tucked a blanket around Katie. Her mind was falling down a well, but then she took a breath in and the sharp tang of tar struck the inside of her nose. Her face scrunched up.

She tried not to care.

She could still sleep even with the smell and that's all that mattered.

She didn't need to care.

_The seashell sunk beneath the tide, the parhment began to burn,_ the image of ashes reminiscent of those left behind from a burnt cigarette swam before her and she jumped up.

"Hey!" Alicia's voice was like a cat's when the word burst from her mouth. Katie's hand held the cigarette Alicia had been smoking for only a second before she threw it to the floor and stubbed it out.

Katie threw herself around and walked back to the sofa, nose in the air, knowing what was to come next. But Alicia neither yelled nor even spoke at all. Katie thought that perhaps she was staring at the back of her head in disbelief, until she heard the sound of a box being opened and Katie knew what Alicia had done was simply take another cigarette out.

Katie's hands clenched, her body went stiff. She walked back over to Alicia.

oOo

Alicia lit the cigarette, a rush of adrenaline surging through her body, an electric zing running up her arm. Her heart began to race, her hands moved at a speed she didn't know she was capable of. Something at the back of her mind told her to get what she wanted before it could be taken away, and if her heart could've dropped into her stomach when it was, it would have.

Katie whisked the cigarette from her hand, stubbed it out and vanished it. Then Alicia watched as Katie summoned the box from her pocket as though she had every right to take it.

Still, Alicia didn't yell, didn't even speak. Instead, she merely glared, hands clenching the edge of the chair she sat on until her knuckles turned white. Blood had rushed to her face, she could tell, for now it felt so hot she might as well had been bleeding. There were words in her head that fought to form sentences and made it to her mouth broken and torn, nonexistent before they even reached the tip of her tongue. She stared at Katie with a look of anger that could bring a soldier to his knees, silently fighting to crack the shell around her friend. When Katie's legs stiffened and her cheeks flushed, Alicia almost smirked.

"I'm not letting you smoke," Katie said. It came out faint. Alicia laughed.

"Why not?" she asked, almost cynical.

When Katie didn't answer, Alicia slipped the box from her grasp and sat back down, but didn't take another cigarette out.

"I know what they can do," Alicia said, making herself comfortable again and leaning up against the arm of the chair. "But I choose to ignore it."

Katie sat down, too, looking stiff and proper with a straight back and hands clasped on her lap. If she were out in public, no one would likely guess she played Quidditch.

Katie took a breath in, letting out an unsteady sigh. "Why?"

"Because there's no such thing as an action not worth the consequences," Alicia said, putting her head in her hands.

Katie bit her lip, narrowing her eyes. "I don't believe that."

"My mother didn't particularly deny it when I asked about her pregancy with me." Alicia looked up and smirked. Katie cringed.

"Smoking cigarettes is different than having children," Katie said. Alicia shrugged. For some reason, they lapsed into silence, a rather uncomfortable one at that. Katie shifted. It was rare that the silence between her and Alicia became awkward or tense. A question hung in the air, dancing on a tightrope to keep from falling. Alicia stared into Katie's eyes, which were trained on the floor. The air felt dense. They might as well had been back out in the fog. A shadow seemed to loom over them both, as though it were evening rather than early morning.

"Why do you care so much?" Alicia's words broke through the air, shattering the silence like a hammer to a mirror. Katie almost jumped, looked into Alicia's eyes, swallowed.

"You're my friend," she said simply. But Alicia wasn't stupid. She narrowed her eyes at Katie, and everything seemed to grow even more uncomfortable.

"What's that?" Alicia jerked her head at the area around Katie's neck. A chain could be seen peeking out from beneath the fabric. Copper. Katie looked down, reached for it and held up a heart shaped locket, no bigger than the tip of her finger.

"It's mine," she said. Alicia stared for a little longer, looking like she were about to ask something else. Then she sighed, knowing that if Katie wanted to tell her more, she would.

Katie fiddled with the chain for a few minutes, looking down into the tiny locket that had nothing in it. Then she finally said, "I bought it a few years ago in Hogsmeade, now I'm just waiting for something to put in it."

Alicia looked up. Her expression wasn't as tight as it was minutes ago. "Like a wedding photo?"

Katie looked slightly awkward. She tried to shrug it off. "Maybe..." Adding in "or a baby photo" would've made things worse, so she tucked the locket away beneath her scarf.

Alicia smirked when Katie's face flushed again. "With who?"

"I don't know. Whoever has the nerve to fall in love with me." She shrugged again.

Somehow, a smile slipped onto Alicia's face, and it refused to drop. Katie fiddled with the chain beneath her scarf, looking at the floor, then her head snapped up at Alicia's smile. "What?"

"Oliver is in love with you," Alicia said, quietly, softly. A look of satisfaction slipped onto her face at her own words, as though Oliver were hiding behind a curtain, only seconds away from jumping out into the open and gracing her with the perfect opportunity to tease him.

Katie closed her eyes, sighed. "I know."

Alicia slid onto the floor. She crossed her legs, took Katie's hands and ushered her down into the same position. She whispered in her ear, "Do you love him back?"

Katie took a breath in, sighed once again. "I- No..."

Alicia pulled herself away, looked at Katie and titled her head.

"But I wish I did," Katie said. Her eyes had closed, as though she were trying to block out a bright light.

Alicia bent to whisper in her ear again. "Do you love someone else?"

Katie shuddered, her body tensed. "No-" She held her breath. "Yes."

Alicia brought herself closer so their noses were a mere inch away. Her dark eyes looked deep into the vastness of Katie's own brown ones, curiosity written in every line of her face. "Who?"

Katie could've taken another breath, but the ability to breath seemed to be pulled away from her. She stared into Alicia's eyes, moving her mouth to feign speaking, then their lips touched.

Katie's eyes were shut tight against the outside. Stars danced before her in flashes of multi-coloured light, a vast world of emptiness. Alicia hadn't pulled away, and for given a life meant for taking risks, Katie deepened her kiss, hands moving tentatively up Alicia's shoulders. She didn't want to know what the other girl was thinking, what her expression was. She was back in the space enclosing infinity and didn't want to leave.

And the first thought that struck her was how tender her lips were, how soft and warm her skin was, how calm and sweet Alicia always seemed to be around her, from the very beginning. All the years spent healing wounds given through Quidditch training and talking out the times that seemed to pull them both down a well came back to her. Then she pulled away.

Katie opened her eyes, and it was as though she were stepping from the warmth of the Quidditch Quarters and back out into the biting snow, icy wind lacing its way up her arms and legs and around her neck like vicious vines. She attempted an awkward smile, but it broke when Alicia jumped from her spot on the floor.

And a wall was built between them again.

oOo

Alicia stared down at Katie, who looked to be fighting hard not to fall back against the sofa and cry. Her own eyes shining, Alicia curled her hands into fists and said, "How long?" It came out soft, broken, like she'd already been crying. Alicia looked down, curling her hands into even tighter fists.

Katie gulped. "A- a few months." Katie's throat tightened - she was going to breakdown any second.

Alicia turned away. The box in her pocket made its appearence and gave her a cigarette, the opportunity to something between escape and distraction. She lit it, almost dropping it when she heard Katie stand up, like a rush of wind at her back. Alicia gave her the sound of the breeze outside in return, opening the door.

"_Wait_," Katie said. It wasn't desperate, wasn't sharp, wasn't a command but something Alicia could either take or leave.

"What?" She was breathing in harsh air, like the cold would rather she be somewhere far off and away. The smoke burned up her nostrils, left a bitter and burnt tang on her tongue. Alicia pulled the cigarette from her mouth for the last time that night. The taste it left felt like it could last a thousand years.

Katie stood on unsteady legs only a few feet away. Her voice cut through the air like a knife, despite its softness, tenderness, quiet words spoken from a mouth dry with guilt and a tongue dipped in fear.

"I'm sorry," she choked out.

Alicia narrowed her eyes at the ground, dropped the cigarette and stomped on it, stubbed it out. Her next words were uttered slowly, loudly, as though she wasn't quite sure Katie would be able to hear through such a tense wall that had been built between them. "Katie, love, remember when I tell you to never, ever ever _ever_, apologize for that."

It was like the cut of a tape, the snap of a rubber band, undeniably final - Alicia closed the door behind her, walking out into the icy wind and snow, fully aware that it wouldn't take long for Katie to understand what she meant.

oOo

Looking up at the sky, the fog was still around. The earth was painted white and carried a haunting lullaby on the breeze. Alicia sighed through the air, whispering back to the girl who wouldn't get to hear what she said. "...Maybe I love you, too."


End file.
